South East Bexar County Awareness: Bexar County Commissioner Rodriguez Can He Tell The Truth

Commissioner Rodriguez made a statement to the media after the airing of the Kens5 coverage. His statement claimed that he was aware of the communities desire to circulate a petition to remove the members of the ESD6 board.

Commissioner Rodriguez stated that he asked the District Attorney's office to look into this because he understands that it's not quite simple to remove board members serving a current term.

This is his attempt to mislead the community once again. Anyone who has visited the bexar.org website and has seen the application for board and commissions appointments has read the final clause before they sign the application.

"I UNDERSTAND AN APPOINTMENT IS AT WILL OF COMMISSIONERS COURT AND I MAY BE TERMINATED FOR CAUSE AT ANYTIME".

Maybe, what Commissioner Rodriguez meant to say was that he was asking the D.A. how to keep the petition from being accepted. Chapter 775 of ESD Law states that a petition of signatures has to go before the ESD board themselves, if they have enough signatures, the board can vote to push it to the next level which then goes to the commissioners court for approval.

Never the less, Commissioner Rodriguez has used this out before, when he removed Andrew Herrera, former ESD6 board President from 2005 until 2009, when he was removed without cause to be replaced by Ms. Mendelsohn in June of 2009. As well as former member, Susuan (Sue) Matthey. Both long standing members of the southside community. Ms. Matthey's family history goes far enough back that the Southside ISD named it's Middle School after this family.

Commissioner Rodriguez seems to treat the people of the South Bexar County community as though they are ignorant or illiterate. With the Internet and other media; all comments can be substantiated-fact checked.

Commissioner Rodriguez, drops the DA's office as quickly as Kim Darby dropped Attorney J. Noble Dagget in True Gritt. Yet, nothing has been heard from the DA's office on any of the actions of the ESD6. We did at least get to see J. Noble Dagget once in the movie True Gritt, but the Bexar County District Attorney's office is missing in action when it comes to ESD6 activity.

Reporter Joe Conger covered the ESD6 and VFD's, doing a follow up story. In the story Mr. Conger made it clear that the VFD's, the community and the SISD representatives had little faith in the fact that Sylvia Ruiz Mendelsohn, President of the ESD6 Board and her members would actually make their payments for September to the VFD's; which were to be paid at the meeting the evening after they met with the representatives of the entities involved in lawsuits with the ESD6.

THEY WERE CORRECT!

As Mr. Conger pointed out, the board could not establish a quorum and payments were not made. According to Ms. Mendelsohn, it wasn't that they didn't have the funding, it was just that members couldn't make the meeting. A new meeting was set for Nov. 3, 2011 at the ESD6 (unmarked) building on 1604 South next to the Southside Baptist Church. The building also houses offices rented at Chaparral Produce. If heading west bound, it will be on the left hand side with a 3 rail white fence for those ever interested in attending. The meeting coincided with the date the ESD6 collected it's first large sum of tax dollars for the 2011-2012 fiscal year.

The ESD6 had to take out a "pay day" loan to make payments the prior month, of which they didn't pay the VFD's what was owed. The VFD's once again attempted to receive payment. However, Ms. Mendelsohn with a history of not paying the full amount owed and instead usually striking out almost half or more of what is owed, had the VFD's uncertain as to what they would actually receive. They would however, as has been customary; be paying their Attorney, Louis T. Rosenberg for his work.

The agenda called for the district to lien all equipment and apparatus that the district made payments on. A waste of taxpayer fees once again on the attorney, Louis T. Rosenberg. Many of the items owned by the fire departments were purchased with grants. As Mr. Gil Perez of the SAFE-D said; items purchased with grant money especially from the Forestry Service cannot be owned by anyone except the person's that originally filed for the grants. Which could explain why, Ms. Mendelsohn told the fire departments, when she took over the board, that the VFD's should let the ESD6 apply for the grants since they would be responsible for the payments.

A lie by omission is still a lie, although for Ms. Mendelsohn and Commissioner Rodriguez, it's a typical day at the office. Once the items are no longer needed, they revert back to the grant provider to be redistributed. They cannot be sold either.